ns depends. others who come after you may revisit, others may write it but you men will make history. but to down and one to go now to make it three. ♪ >> ♪ oh say can you see, by the dawn's early light, what so proudly we hail at the twilight last gleaming. who's rod stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight over the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming and the rockets red glare the bombs bursting in air gave truth to the light that are fried -- that our flag was still there.

oh say does that star-spangled banner yet wave over the land of the free and the home of the brave ♪ >> monday night on "the communicators" -- we met up with author peter nowak at the electronic medication slow -- show visit we are a new phase of development likely to enhance the human condition. >> robots are an especially interesting one because in 2014, i think it was the year of robot angst. i don't know the day when i that i didn't see some kind of story about how robots are stealing

jobs from humans and we are all going to end up at work. here's a robot it's a better bartender, better waitress or waiter and so on. the thing i think that is missed a lot is every prior revolution or advance in automation has resulted in better jobs for humans. we are worried about the robots taking our jobs we're having a hard time imagining what we will be doing 10 years from now. history has shown we will figure out a way to combine with the robots to create new jobs that were previously unimaginable. >> at monday night on "the communicators" on c-span2. >> remarkable partnerships iconic women, their stories in "first ladies, the book." >> she

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c-span's "first ladies was quote is available as a hardcover or e-book through your favorite online bookseller. >> 100 years ago, on may 7 1915, the rms lusitania was torpedoed by a german u-boat off the coast of ireland. nearly 1200 of the passengers on board were killed, including 128 americans. next, a panel of scholars examines the event and the role the sinking played in changing american public opinion about world war i. the u.s. world war i centennial commission hosted this discussion at the national press club. >> our panel will be talking about three topics -- the sinking of the lusitania and how i came to happen. second, the propaganda campaign spurred on that helped convince

americans to go to war. third, president wilson is leadership and strategy leading up to his declaration of war. we have a distinguished panel of experts. admiral samuel cox, retired, the director of naval history and curator for the navy responsible for the navy's museums art and artifact collections. 150 million pages of archives and for collecting and interpreting u.s. naval history throughout the world. a graduate of the u.s. able academy, his career focused on intelligence and he served as rector of intelligence for the u.s. cyber command. he's the co-author of 10 books and numerous articles. we should note his book, woodrow

wilson, a burden to great to bear. his new book comes out at the end of the month. john asked will hamilton comes to us from louisiana state university and is a senior scholar at the woodrow wilson international center for scholars. his career has taken him from journalism to public service on capitol hill before academia, the book he's working on focused on propaganda and press editorship during world war i. to set the stage here, 100 years ago today, a german u-boat sank a luxury liner lusitania just south of ireland as it is eating -- as it is steaming toward port killing nearly all 1200 passengers and crew. torpedoes were and untried technology. can you give us a quick synopsis

, particularly in the german navy and tell us why the german navy moved so quickly to warfare that upset all the rules of engagement on the high seas. >> thank you. in the interest of brevity, i will skip several centuries of failed attempts and start with an incident in 1899 where the american inventor of the modern incarnation of the submarine was testing his sixth attempt to build a submarine that either the u.s. navy or oil maybe would buy. this was in new york and it turned out that clara barton, 77 years old and head of the american red cross came to take a look at the submarine and talked her into taking an underwater joyride on the submarine, and she lambasted him because she could not believe in

american would develop and create such a terrible weapon of war. holland replied that because it was so terrible it would event ute wars. today, you can argue he has fulfilled that deterrence of nuclear war but in 1914, the events of that war proved their barton was right. the technology advanced so rapidly that the thought process of the political leadership and military leadership did not have a good sense of how this weapon worked and what the implications were. the germans got a later start than the u.s. and british they learn from our mistakes. by the time world war i started german submarines were as technologically advanced as anybody's will stop they lacked numbers, they started the war with eight teen submarines compared to 75 in the royal navy. they you 20 which sank the

lusitania, about 200 feet long with a crew of 40 men. it operated on the surface, most the time on diesel engines with a speed of maybe 15 knots or 18 miles an hour. the diesel powered generator which charged the battery so with a summary went underwater it operated on e using electric motor and underwater, it could only go 80 miles at five knots. if you crank it up to a max speed, you would run out of battery in about an hour. they spent most of the time on the surface and only went underwater to attack or escape. the submarine carried seven torpedoes which did not work very well. it was hard to get a ship with the torpedo when the ship was moving and about 50% of them that were fired accurately did not work.

it was a major challenge for the germans. at the start of the war, both the british and germans viewed submarines as a close to the fence weapon and neither had the vision of using them and long-range open oceans, tax against merchant ships. the first successful attack during world war i was spectacular stop in a bad way. the german you nine attack three armored cruisers not expecting to be attacked by a patrol starting the british arcade of germany. the second cruiser stopped and the third one stopped to pick up survivors. 1400 something british sailors lost their lives during that as all three ships went down. the first attack against a

merchant ship was about a month later, october of 1914. that was where the german submarines were trying to follow accepted types of warfare that had existed for over 100 years in the since the first attack flagged the merchant ship down put the crew in the life boats, but their own men ashore, open the valves and the ship sank of its own accord. the skipper wasn't sure whether he would be court-martialed or a hero when he got back because there were no rules of engagement for what the u-boat captains were supposed to do. these captains were young. as the war developed if you are going to get your lou max, which is the highest german award, you

would shoot down how many of her airplanes. ships come in all sizes, so it dependent on tonnage. what a u-boat captain wanted most was a big fat juicy target will stop torpedoes being unreliable and expensive, he wanted to use as carefully. at the start of the war, the british started a blockade of germany. they did not call it a blockade for legal reasons but that is effectively what it was. german propaganda look at this as the british starving our women and children as a means of defeating us. they are trying to find a way to do it, so the submarine offered a means to do it. the war did not go the way anyone expected. no one had europe -- no one in europe had seen bloodletting and carnage and did not understand the impact of the machine gun on

the battlefield. it did not take long before political leaders were desperate to find that and admit it was a mistake, but they were looking for a wonder weapon to get themselves out of this jam. the germans hit upon simmering warfare. the german navy engaged in this massive battleship building arms race with the british before the war and have lost. they knew if they went into a battleship to battleship conflict, they were going to use. -- they were going to lose stop the german navy was looking for something to get back in his good graces, so they would latch on to this capability and say if we send the submarines off of ireland, we will sink british merchant ships and that will

bring a quick and to the war because the rich won't be able to sustain that. the problem initially was the germans did not have enough submarines. you can only keep two on station off the western approaches to england. as a result, it did not go quite as well as the germans expected, but that's how they got into using the submarines that quickly in the war. >> can you quickly explain how did the you 20 come to choose a passenger ship as a target? was she a legitimate target? ask it was sheer coincidence that those ships were in the same part of the water at the same time. british intelligence tracked the you 20 report out of the northern part of the northern sea because they would go off the coast of ireland because it's too dangerous to go through the english channel.

the british knew where it was intended to operate. two days before the lusitania was coming into that area, she started sinking ships. the first was a sailing fishing boat sank with guns, which was the preferred method. then she torpedoed to other ships right along the track of where the lusitania was supposed to go. the british admiralty recognize this and the lusitania was some multiple warnings, but they were conflicting. the first said stay away from the coastline of ireland. the second said german submarines are operating in a particular area right in the middle of where you were going to go, so stay away from the coastline. the skipper of the lusitania was trying to split the difference,

but the lusitania came out of fog, that you 20 decided they were not going to go to their -- the u-20 was going west and south of ireland and lusitania was coming east, came out of august the u-20, came out and it was like a submarine dream. they made several cores changes trying to get a fix on where they were. they did not know so they can accurately calculate when they would arrive at high tide in liverpool as they did not want to get trapped circling around the outside of support which was a surefire way to get hit by the simmering. the lusitania's last court chain -- last course change doomed that ship week as a ship coming directly at the simmering, if it does it, they simmering has a perfect shot will stop if it sags, has a perfect shot stop the simmering just moved to the side, which is what happened and

it had the perfect shot. it would not matter how fast the lusitania was going. chasing something as fast as the lusitania would have been an issue. but the captain of the boat hire one torpedo. it worked and hit in the most vulnerable spot on the ship and resulted in a secondary explosion a few seconds later likely caused by a main steam line rupture. but the way the lusitania had been designed, outfitted originally to be an auxiliary cruiser, but she was never figured out that way. she had no guns on board. but some structural characteristics resulted in her rapidly flooding in the longitudinal coal bucket -- coal bunkers. how could a torpedoes sink a ship that big? it can come

especially when it hits where it hit and the second the motion she lost the power and shows it could either stop or go ahead -- it was basically a catastrophe and the ship went down in 18 minutes. >> we can't do questions until later. >> the question was whether the summary was underwater. the submarine was underneath the water. there were reports after the war that it circled, but none of those were true. they took one torpedo, one-shot and determined you only needed one torpedo to sink the ship because it was going down so fast. he stumbled across another merchant ship several hours later and shot another torpedo which did not work and proceeded back to germany.

>> we have this catastrophe, 1200 people killed, 200 some odd americans, what's the initial impact of this news among the american public? >> the news was incomplete and remained incomplete for some time. the initial stories were much like you see in the new york times with big headlines and stories that suggested the sort of brutality the germans had inflicted on the ships. even newspapers like william randolph hearst was newspapers which had been more balanced and open to the german side of the equation framed the story in pretty negative terms. but that was fairly short. we will get in later to help president wilson calculated this

and decided not to go to war. but it had stopped eating a big regular news item. the chicago tribune that americans would sooner have bubonic plague imposed on them that more. the result was this was not going to be an event that dragged us immediately into war. it was an event that clearly opened up the floodgates for arguments by teddy roosevelt who said we should enter the fray. the part of the story that interest me involves the propaganda side of this. in a sense, the sinking of the lusitania was a metaphor for what had been wrong with the ways germans did propaganda.

it was a stupid idea, the actual value was nonexistent effectively. but for most people overseas, it was framed as this idea of them being a british company -- british country. there's a case to be made and the wilson administration did it that it was not illegal for them to do what they did and they had a case to make that the way the blockade was being used, which the british blockade was unprecedented, there had been conferences during the london declaration which the british did not sign even though it was in london which said you cannot have octaves of this scale. there's great debate about how many people in the dying as a result of food shortages. the low end of the scale is 3000

people. it is not as though the germans didn't have a complaint. a lot of the rules of sea warfare were unwritten because the declaration, the rules of what you should do and so forth were up grabs. nevertheless, it was a stupid move on the part of the germans and then was compounded by their using stupid propaganda techniques. they could have tried to make a better case for why they had to do this, though they were somewhat limited because they did not want to admit food shortages had had an act on them and all propaganda was being run by the military and the military these were overlaid on the propaganda machinery. they gloated over what they did.

there was a man in the united states who had been sent over here to run the propaganda operation and ended up in cleveland. he was so over-the-top in his defense of what the germans had done that he effectively had to leave the country. the german ambassador said after the lusitania, our ability to do propaganda in the united states is fairly limited. there is more to that story. >> let's get more into the propaganda. talk about how did woodrow wilson react to this. >> woodrow wilson reacted to world war i right away in august, 1914. he took a number of very important decisions and decided some very important things.

one of them was he would attempt to mediate the war himself to try to and did, to bring the parties together to his conference. before august 1914 was over, he had sent a message to the heads of all the words -- warring nations offering his services. this was extremely important because wilson fervently believed it was possible for him to do it, it was his obligation to the world to do it and to a certain extent, his destiny to do it. he was a very religious man and anytime during world war i, he spoke about the hand of providence guiding events. he took this very seriously and literally and his correspondence , his speeches attest to this over and over again.

he made that effort and he decided that in order to enter the horror and be an honest broker for peace, the united states must absolutely avoid getting dragged into the war and to that end, he resisted calls for military preparedness already being advanced by people like theodore roosevelt in the autumn of 1914. the british imposed their blockade in the autumn of 1914. in early 1915, the germans proclaimed a submarine blockade of the british isles and in that span of months, a number of other developments accelerated the scope of the war. the carnage was indeed unbelievable. by december of 1914, hundreds of thousands of deaths and the economies of nations were being

stretched to the maximum and already orders were being placed in the united states for weapons, munitions and agricultural commodities. there were calls in congress to forbid that. wilson decided to permit it. i can comment on the reasons but i will add several more items before i do that. the western powers decided that was the position to take advantage of buying munitions and weapons of war. the imperial german navy was not able to fight its way out of the north sea. the navy could transport to pick up weapons and bring them back. after the germans proclaimed their submarine blockade, the germans began shipping weapons and munitions in the cargo holds up passenger liners like the

lusitania. the british knew it, the american public knew it, there was newspaper coverage of it. and the germans took out ads in american newspapers warning americans don't travel on british ships. you do so at your own risk. secretary of state -- secretary of state willie jennings bryan -- william jennings bryan was trying to dissuade americans from traveling aboard these ships. you have this set of preconditions leading up to the lusitania sinking. there was a wide range of opinions on these different disputes, whether the united states should or should not prove -- prohibit the sales of weapons of war and whether they should warn americans not to travel on these ships and if they did so, they did on their

own risk. wilson took a very unstable position after the lusitania went down. theodore roosevelt called for war immediately. wilson certainly did not want that. but in the summer of 1915 because of the lusitania sinking, he decided his earlier opposition to prepare this legislation had a mistake and authorized the warrior and navy departments -- verizon the war and navy departments to appear drafting is measures to stop they were put into shape in the autumn of 19 to the and in january of 1916, wilson made a whirlwind speaking tour of the isolationist sentiment. the lusitania sinking played a crucial role in this sequence of events, however, the legislation

was opposed in wilson's own party. it took all of wilson's skills to get this through the house in 1916 and finally in the autumn he signed the act in two wilson's early opposition to preparedness put the u.s. behind the curve in being able to put troops into battle in 1970. took a long time. the united states was far behind the curve. this cut back on wilson's leverage with the british and french on war aims in a lot of ways. the lusitania sinking though it did demonstrate the issue that would finally force wilson to go to congress for a declaration of war, did not represent a process that was inevitable. the fortunes of war shifted back and forth. that was one of the things that made it so hard for wilson to be a peace broker.

the losing side, at any given point, was usually more than ready to sit down and talk peace. but the winning side, in light of sacrifice, was inclined to play its advantage and win. wilson went through almost endless gyrations, chasing the phantom of a peace conference he could bring about. and he never did. in 1916, as he saw reelection the germans, for reasons of their own, decided to behave themselves. whereas, in 1916, the british engaged in maritime tactics related to the blockade. struck wilson and other americans as so high-handed, so outrageous, and many americans

know little about this -- by 1915, wilson had begun to tilt towards the germans. whereas the british were being outrageous. there is a remarkable session that colonel house recorded in his diary in 1916, where he warned wilson, if you keep on pushing the brits, we may have were with them. wilson said, fine, i am ready. that is the way it was playing out by the end of 1916. then everything changed again. the british decided in 1917 to resume unrestricted summer and warfare. some have said this is one of the stupidest decisions in history. if the germans had targeted military vessels, placed restrictions, but it seemed absolutely savage.

but after the germans made that decision, wilson was almost in a daze. he had persuaded himself he could absolutely end the war through a peace conference. he said to the house at one point, it is as if the world shifted on its rotation and went the other way. i do not know what to do. a very strange sequence of events in terms of policymaking. he was, in many ways, making it up as he went along. except for the fact that, from the beginning, he had an idea he could end it. and to and it, the united states had to be absolutely neutral impeccably neutral. in a letter to walter page, wilson explains why he decided

not to oppose the shipment of american weapons to the nations at war. why he decided not to warn americans against sailing on british ships. he said to broker peace, we have to be perfectly neutral. therefore, it is our right as a neutral nation to do exports. we should do it. demonstrate the vigorous use of neutral rights to try to launch ships and not be savagely murdered by a vessel that should give warning and let them get in the lifeboat. they should absolutely vigorously do that. we have to keep doing these things. a far-fetched line of reasoning by my standards, but that is what wilson said. host: if anybody wants to jump in here, samuel cox we have

talked a little bit about how the german high command reacted after the lusitania unrestricted submarine warfare. have they missed anything about reaction in germany? mr. coxe: the initial attack was pretty popular in germany, seen as striking back against the british and therefore justified your it it becomes a case of believing your own propaganda. the germans quickly realized they had a disaster on their hands in terms of relationships with neutral countries particularly the u.s. there have been plenty of senior people within the german government before the war zone was declared around great britain who had argued the submarine force is not strong

enough to do what they claim they will be able to do. all you are really going to do with submarine warfare is antagonize the united states and bring them into war, which everyone realized was a bad thing for germany. they eased back. after the lusitania was sunk the kaiser said, i would never have sunk aligner with that with innocent people on it. submarines were under orders to attack british merchant ships and give warning that they could not be sure that they would not sink neutrals. but the british were busy flying neutral flags on their ships painting out the names on their ships. they began arming merchant ships. a uboat is extremely vulnerable. the germans had less incentive -- they tried to do with the old way and would be at a disadvantage. so they went to surprise attack

by torpedo with no warning. but they did go through a hiatus where they pulled back and reassess. as they became more desperate as the war went on, the argument shifted back. in 1917, they had 100 submarines. ok, now we have enough. some of the savagery talked about before was quite deliberate in the sense that they are trying to make sure the neutrals like the united states stay away. so they are doing things to terrorize neutral merchant shipping. it did not work, really. and certainly did not work against the british, who just kept the ships coming. in 1917, when the unrestricted

warfare was resumed, it was extremely effective at first. it was so effective that the british immediately had to adjust their tactics. they started convoying old destroyers off of duty in other places and brought them back to guard convoys. they make better use of intelligence, which was one of the problems during the lusitania. british intelligence had a good understanding in 1915 of how many german submarines were operating. what they did not have was a good mechanism for taking that intelligence and using it while protecting the source. so the things i talked about intelligence knowing about the u20, there were seven people in the british admiralty aware of the. the lusitania was not among them. that was significant.

the other reason why the british were not able to protect the lusitania was a couple of mindset issues. the lusitania was extremely fast. there was a believe that it was enough to protect a ship against the submarine. in most cases, that is true. in world war ii, the queen elizabeth carried thousands of troops safely because high-speed did protect them and we had intelligence to send them where they knew the german submarines were not. i lost my train of thought. but in the case of lusitania speed does not work if you drive over where a submarine is waiting. that is what happened in that case. the other was almost a pre-9/11 mindset. this disbelief that germans would really do it.

people could not grasp that -- there are 100 years of how you wait warfare at sea -- do not kill passengers, innocent people, and it had not sunk in that the germans meant what they said and did what they said they were going to do. host: when i talked about woodrow wilson, i made it seem like he really liked reporters. do you really think that was true? how did he deal with reporters after the lusitania? panelist: i'm glad to answer that, but i think we need to finish the picture of propaganda. the reason for that is kind of a microcosm. he gobbled was wrong with the german side and never found out what was wrong with the british side. the germans were clumsy and made bad decisions. the british took advantage of

clumsiness to great advantage, tremendous advantage. part of this was because they were so clever. they had something called wellington house, which created propaganda. it was so secret, members of parliament did not know about it. the u.s. was one of its prime areas to work. they wanted to drag the u.s. into the war in the same way the germans wanted to keep us out. they were very crafty about the way they worked with opinion molders. it is interesting that one of the big news events was they found a guy who was a german propagandaist, so the secret service managed to get his believe, it became news all over the new york world, it was really by their secretary -- releaked by the secretary without saying what the source was.

the treasury official agents were tracking germans. meanwhile, british spies were meeting with colonel house all the time. he had a very strong relationship with those people. and there are wonderful documents in the british archives that talk about how they worked in the u.s., but their work was not known. how they managed to play stories and newspapers. there's a wonderful story about dr. albert where they took these documents and ran them for days in new york world. there is one little bit at the bottom that says there is a lot of concern that treasury officials may be leaking information to the germans. even though they are writing all the stores that were leaked by the british. so it was a very -- it was very lopsided. that was exacerbated by another problem.

on august 4 when of the first acts of the british was to sever transatlantic cables. as a result of that, it was difficult for news to be sent by cable by the germans. it was the german cables that were cut. they had wireless, but the u.s. took over the wireless stations. they did not work very well and beginning of the war. in the new york times and chicago newspapers, in the first year, 70% of all the news was from the alice. filming -- allies. only 30% was central powers. and the 30% came by cable and was censored by the british. the germans had a great deal of difficulty telling their story in the united states. i just want to make sure the story was balanced.

with regard to wilson, i am glad to see you had some good experience here. by and large, wilson would not have been -- was not the person who enjoyed mixing with the press. he actually employed a large number of journalists. an astonishing number. secretary lane had been a journalist. in page and brad whitlock, those have all been journalists. there were journalist that went to work in all kinds of other ways. one example is rainmaker -- ray baker, who pretended to be a journalist but never wrote a story during the whole time he was overseas.

he was in britain, basically filing reports for the state department. then he later went to italy and france. when the peace treaty started he was the press secretary instead of george creel. so wilson, that part of the story is very strong. he did not enjoy mingling with journalists. after the lusitania, he did not hold another press conference until december 20 of 1916, when he actually held a conference and told journalists we are not going to try to do anything to bring about peace. so do not report about the. -- that. two days later, he sent his peace proposal, suggesting he would mediate peace. the journalists were furious about this. he had a couple other

conferences and wargames and created the committee on public information, the beginning of government propaganda. then he never had to meet with the press again because he had what he wanted -- a propaganda agency between himself and the press. one small aside, and i will let other people talk. there is a line where he said to colonel house, there are two times it is ok to lie -- when you're talking about a woman's honor and talking to journalists about foreign policy. [laughter] host: jump in here. panelist: wilson did have interesting relations with ray baker and another of other journalists. david lawrence, a formal student of wilson's, was correspondent for the new york evening post. and wilson would often use lawrence to try to leak tips to

the press, the sort he wanted the press to pick up. at other times, his relations with lawrence turned quite cold and bitter. wilson could sometimes be something of a hypocrite. the first of the 14 points drafted in secret within a few hours one morning with colonel house said no more secret treaties. a little problem with enforceability there. but wilson and house violated that provision time and time again. the house gray negotiations from 1915 to 1916, trying to work out an agreement that would force a peace conference in total secrecy. the state department kept largely in the dark. the american public cap largely

in the dark. and wilson would continue to use house in various confidential capacities, a personal envoy during the war, working with the allies on war aims. at the bottom of 1917, lawrence got wind of some of the things house was doing. and wilson flew off the handle and the rated lawrence. you newspaperman need to learn about when to keep your mouth shut. another newspaperman was frank cobb editor of the new york world. just before wilson decided to go to congress for a declaration of war, he supposedly called frank cobb into the white house and just engaged in a spontaneous outpouring of pessimism, despair

, with regard to what the war would do to american democracy. our liberties will go. scholars, for some time, debated whether cobb's account was really accurate. but the consensus of opinion by the late 20th century, led by arthur link, said that the account was probably authentic. you talk about self of filling prophecies. -- fulfilling prophecies. wilson predicts all this would happen, says it is going to be catastrophic, and adopts a defeatist position. then goes ahead and makes it happen. very strange, indeed.

panelist: a little bit on the german propaganda. the germans had a case. the lusitania, when she was sunk, was carrying several million rounds of rifle cartridges and cases of artillery shells, not in a condition that would have caused the famous second explosion, but war material that would have been used to kill germans later on when i got to the front. on a previous voyage, the lusitania had carried artillery. other british liners were being converted and used to transport troops, which is what the german submarines were looking for. so the germans had a case to make. but the unprecedented loss of sending women and children, some 30 infants, to their deaths was

something that overpowered any story that the germans could muster in conjunction with -- the british did a good job of suppressing, for many years, and he knowledge the lusitania was carrying munitions. panelist: they went down and photograph some of them. panelist: that is right. the germans complained about the. -- that. there was something that happened in the middle of all of this that we should not forget to mention. the british had started an investigation into what had happened when the germans went into belgium. and when the lusitania went down, they stepped up production on this. in wellington house. five days after the lusitania went down, they issued a report. and it is a complicated document

because some of it is true. but a lot of it was unsubstantiated information. historians today realize much of what was said was over the top. the result of that was, in addition to the lusitania, you had another item out there. the flipside was, and artisan in germany created a medal to commemorate lusitania sinking. from our point of all that view, that may not be a thing you want to make a metal about. but the british found out about this and made it into a huge extravaganza. wellington house produced 50,000 of these. they distributed them all over the united dates -- states to show, this is what the germans

do. a department store picked up on it and gave the proceeds to the red cross. but here was the example of the way it was portrayed. every german had one of these medal. but it was one person. they made it into a huge media event that suited their purpose. the german medalmaker put an incorrect eight on the -- date on the medal so it looked like a predetermined attack. panelist: the british made a huge propaganda game with this blunder. host: let's talk a little bit about censorship. was it effective or necessary? panelist: i think the fact is

that the press was willing to censor itself to an extraordinary degree. there is all kinds of evidence for that. there was concern about the german-american press, and that gets to a story written was telling. two things happen that we went to war. george creel came up with guidelines, and simultaneously wilson, in the espionage act promoted a clause that was a censorship clause which read almost exactly the way the british censorship of rome at red. the government could censor anything they wanted to. we know that wilson saw the guidelines that creel had

because he made amendments on the document. at the same time, he is also promoting this very open-ended and very broad censorship clause. it ultimately did not pass because people were so outraged. even people who were democrats. a lot of them did not like it. i believe wilson could have gotten it, which is scary, but at the time, they could have gotten a rewritten clause. they could have gotten that passed. i found a letter from the new york times to josie mcdaniel that said they would buy a statutory censorship clause. host: is that right? panelist: i was stunned when i

realized what i was seeing. they were pretty far along in the debate. by the way, the times said we would rather not do this. but it was still pretty broad. we are fortunate, very fortunate, that did not pass from a view of civil liberties. especially when we consider that initially, the supreme court supported the stuff in the espionage act. that is the one piece of what happened in the war that did not live on. the supreme court began to roll back and change their view on the first amendment. in a wonderful twist of history perhaps the most important supreme court justice who led the way for liberal interpretations of the first amendment was wilson's opponent

in the war, charles evans hughes. i think if he had been president , we would have had a different way of handling civil liberties. the bottom line is that it was bad enough as it was. but the press, there were transgressions here and there the press was willing to go along. i have another document where the ap said, whatever creel writes every news editor will follow it. they were pretty patriotic. host: anything to add their? panelist: the suppression of civil liberties that wilson helped usher in, the espionage

act was used to deny mailing privileges to another of socialist opinion journals that opposed the war. the act gave the postmaster general the right to deny such a publication access to mass mailing rates. the espionage act, which is still on the books was worsened significantly in 1918 by an addition that became known as the sedition act which permitted prosecution for civil opposition to the war. it led to the prosecution of eugene debbs. he was put in a federal penitentiary for opposing the war. he was pardoned by warren harding. but the supreme court in the case of shank vs. the united

states in 1919, upheld the constitutionality of the sedition act with a majority opinion. it was written by oliver wendell holmes. holmes was so vilified that he began to drastically change his position and became a champion of civil liberties in many ways for the decade to follow. but holmes wrote this trek coney and decision in the shank case. host: we should probably start with questions from the audience, if there are any. i do not see a microphone, but i can pass on around. if anybody has a question. yeah. let's start. here comes the mic. >> where would you put the telegram in all of this?

panelist: we are looking at one cause. i know that is where the party's right now, but in terms of how you would way i know that is where the party is right now. in terms of how you would way it. -- weight it. >> well, the telegram was very important. but by the time the british revealed its existence to the united states government and the way it revealed to the press had already made the wretched decision because of the german decision. it certainly made a more convincing case for the war declaration, no doubt about that. and it certainly increased the focal support for the war declaration by people like theodore roosevelt were already advocating, but it is really

interesting that even after the telegram was released there were huge antiwar rallies. the american people were very, very conflicted. exactly why in 1917, 1918, the issue of sedition, disloyalty, treason, it was not just a handful of radical large numbers and in many ways that is exactly why there was such a difficult time of it in 1919 getting the versailles treaty ratified.

the so-called irreconcilable opponents of the league of nations particularly in the republican party but not just in the republican party by any means. convinced noninterventionist and in ideological terms there was a case to be made for non- interventionism among liberals or progressives and among conservatives in 1919 the american people. >> one quick point about zimmerman if i could. telegrams more well known historically. what is interesting about is that it was not the only crazy

note that the germans were sending. people who worked over here, almost look like keystone cop ideas. this just happened to be one they found out about. they did what the united states to know how they know it. it went to the united states and went from the united states to mexico city because the british didn't want them for the united states to know what all they all they new line all that they were listening to. they had to have someone go to mexico city to go to the post office there and get a copy. a copy they would give to the ambassador and burden was on the -- in britain was one the came from mexico.

>> how would you characterize the press's role, do they see their role? >> right. >> so that's an interesting question. the press for the most part was not high radio war. -- hungering to go to war. some members of the press, like hearst, really fighting the idea. ultimately we get so far along that it's hard to roll it back but it's great to have quite sure when important to remember that a lot of people in the country were not enthusiastic. another side to it that is part of your question is worth getting into. one of the thing about progressives, even the most aggressive progressives was that they use the word publicity in a

way that would be foreign to us today they would say, i'm going to raise. and do publicity. what they meant by publicity was bring something that would enlighten the public. they also knew they also knew that the railroads were doing publicity that was that publicity. many journalists thought in these terms. it has more of the edmund burke kind except it wasn't just tell us what's going on in government. and i believe that that contributed to a large number of journalists who went into government, but when and the community on public relations who came of age as journalists with that mindset that they were going -- that they had been -- it is worth saying that they had been raised in the idea of

busting trusts and using publicity to do it. in the end of the ended up doing is great. it was in the hands of the government. it is really a story, good people trying to do good things and ending up in some respects doing bad things. >> yes, over here? can we get the microphone over to this woman? >> were the british shipping munitions on their own flagship s or were they using neutrals? >> they were doing a bit of everything. anyway they could get the material through. so, yes.

from the german perspective the british were deathly not playing fair and they were. >> anybody else? >> thank you. the sinking of the lusitania occurred less than one year after the outbreak of world war i. can you or can you or any other panels describe the change in us public opinion and how soon that occurred? >> i haven't done a lot of research on changes in public opinion that took place -- took place within the time spent of that short duration.

the sense i have from the research i have done is that the sinking certainly did energize people like theodore roosevelt. it certainly did increase the anger and outrage among those who had already and had essentially taken sides as to which side the united states should be on but among people who are oppose the united states getting in law among those the militarism out of control of people like when jennings bryan, -- like william jennings bryant secretary of state to it told wilson we should be telling americans to stay off the ship. finding ways to prevent and mediate these incidents so that they don't lead us.

finally -- well, not finally right away within a month after brian had tried again and again to give wilson to seize upon the incident in a way that would create an opportunity banquet. he resigned. by 1916 when wilson was running for reelection get back on the democratic party he wanted to preserve his own future. but until then it was a huge falling out many left of center.

activists that come to believe that war was one of the worst features of profiteering imperialism. bryant believe that very strongly. many of the party remember the 1890s the remembered out was in the worst economic depression in american history. bryant's own 1896 campaign on behalf of, suffering people, the ill-fated -- operating on behalf of the common man can it really seemed like grasp -- grassroots

activism is about to transform american politics direction. then came the spanish-american war. the populist party began to put away actually seem to be on an amazing luck is everything he did the spanish-american war went to easy victories. the united states began to take the place of spain as imperial overlord list of people in the philippines. and there's a debate, and anti- imperialist league in 1898. industrialists like andrew carnegie, and those of the people who disagreed. it's absolutely at it's

odds with american traditions. we must not become an imperial power. bryant get the nomination and campaign and is and time. there was an insurrection going on in the philippines against spain. the leaders of the united states would be the guarantor of there independence within the united states to the place of spain. the guerrilla war continued. there were atrocities committed in the campaign that true censorship. people like brian found out later. this is wilson secretary of state. and the association of war with selfish imperial aggressive, the the association of war with the

political process that kind of short-circuits the political chances for economic democracy at home all of it powerfully active. the republican party and among conservatives, the reasons why they were averse , some of the many would international commitments, but wilson's own party, and after the united states got in these feelings remained active. you know, many, many people in wilson's party bitterly resented what had happened thought he had been duped. >> if i could add on that, the news -- it's hard to add on that, but the news of the lusitania came barrage of other incredibly bad news. the first use of zeplins

against cities, bomb civilians from the year. force use of poison gas the month before the lusitania. the bloodbath. and everything else going on in that will. as visceral reaction as americans had to lusitania sinking, it was accompanied by why on earth would we want to get in the middle of that mess? that is their problem and we should stay out. i don't out. i don't think the lusitania by itself would have gotten us into the war. absent the germans absent the germans being stupid doing again what they did in 1915. we may never have gotten the war. >> the question here. do we have a microphone? there we go. >> people continue to take blinders across the atlantic after lusitania? if so, do we make any attempt to see the british did not love

them up munitions? >> the transatlantic passenger train was already way down by the time that happened. most of the british steamship companies have laid up for major liners. lusitania was kind of the last one. and traffic dropped off even further after that. i think a number of people were going joy riding across the atlantic. now, the stuff that was on the munitions were on the lusitania legal by us law the time. i can't answer that will. there were plenty of the british were using to wage war across the atlantic british and neutral in us ships. >> question in the back. >> there was some discussion about who knew how much before

the sinking occurred. i have read some speculation that perhaps churchill was more aware of the possibility of the bombing, the sinking of about -- of a boat than the americans were allowed to understand. i know after world war ii it was speculation that roosevelt knew in advance. similar speculation in the press. >> well, yeah. the conspiracy theories revolving around the lusitania are immense. at the time wasting churchill was the 1st lord of the admiralty command he was one of the seven people who read into the intelligence that was coming across. at one time he was quoted as saying we need the neutral nations. we need this stuff. many of them to come to the

united kingdom in order to sustain our war effort. a war effort. out of some of them get in trouble so much the better because that would work to england's advantage and against the germans. now, it's a far cry from that didn't say he was complicit in any way with what happened to lusitania. he actually left for paris two days before the attack. so he actually wasn't in any kind of position to be controlling what was going on. and when you look at the track of the lusitania and you look at the track of the suffering and the countless individual decisions and actions that resulted in them being in the same place at the same time, the idea that that could have been manipulated by anybody to have that effect is really, really far-fetched. but, you know, the fact that their -- one torpedo into explosions, the fact that the british went to great lengths to cover up the fact that there

were munitions on the ship, went to great lengths to hide any of their knowledge that they gain by intelligence, the links that they went to scapegoat the captain of the ship in order to divert attention from basically their own incompetence and how they provided warnings to lusitania plus the actions of the germans. there were german agent spreading rumors in the united states before the ship even left. you take all that together and it has resulted in a hundred years of conspiracy theories about what really happened. my assessment would be command conspiracies sell books. they are entertaining. but what fundamentally competently operated submarine with a weapon that that works the way it was designed to work, skippered by a captain who a

was doing what the naval high command told him to do. and that and that is not all that glamorous, but it is actually the real story. and all the speculation about whether there was other ammunition were not that caused the explosion, lots of studies of gone into that, and none of those bear fruit. in fact, the to lusitania, turner, his position on the 2nd explosion was that it was a main theme line explosion he would be the one most likely to know. after all the hundred years of all these theories, the thing that best fits what happened was that mainstream line rupture and not some kind of nefarious plot by the british to set this thing up to be sunk or some predetermined sabotaged by the germans. all of a sudden layout is theories, and none of them really fit the facts. >> now, we are coming to the end, but i do want one more

question since we are trying to establish what world war i did in american history we will -- or in world history. the war to end all wars. but it was the weather started -- the war that started all wars. can we go around and talk just a a little bit, if each of us could write a book on this what was the impact of the war back? what is going on in the middle east now. >> i think the war, it was a cataclysmic event with the skill of losses that dwarfed anything that had preceded. you go back to ancient times have. that lasted that long.

that war changed the world and has affected everything that has occurred since. we were talking about the middle east. wilson pushed for open trees and -- treaties and the sikes-piko agreement between britain and france, secret agreement that arbitrarily set the boundaries of nations in the middle east that didn't match with the tribal or ethnic boundaries were, left left the courage of the cold, created a rack in -- created iraq and syria. and basically you can trace the mess we have in the middle east back to sex picot and those -- sikes picot and those agreements that were made as a result of world war i.

it will be for the benefit of all mankind. >> it was a global trust of the catastrophe. that century was really quite peaceful. he had a crimean war franco-prussian war and it was our civil war were to end war, i have to talk a long time to discuss wilson's hopes for a non-vindictive piece to talk about the chances that he might have had had he played his cards better and had strategic leverage to commit the british to pre- commit them to a non- convicted piece. he blew it in my opinion many, many times over. but the war in the view of some left of center people, these